beyondbinaryfandomcom-20200215-history
Autism "Cures"
Most autistic people find the idea of "curing" autism to be akin to the idea of "curing blackness" or "curing femininity". Autisticness is seen by members of the Neurodiversity movement as part of the spectrum of human diversity, and talk of 'curing' autism sounds very much like eugenics to us. Intra-community Disagreement Some members of the autistic community want a cure, or even believe themselves to have been cured: Autistic and disability pride - ExAutistic.net "Many autistics define themselves by their autism. They have created their identity around it. Therefore, many autistics don’t want to be healed, because they say autism is who they are. They are proud of having autism because they think it gives them gifts/talents and a superior intelligence. This is called autistic pride. Before I was healed of autism, I focused more on autism and the other disabilities than I focused on God. I got my identity from autism. After I was healed, God told me I was glorifying the disabilities I had (in the Bible’s terms, this meant I made them an idol in my life)." Medical Assistance Rather than a "cure", most autistic people would simply like medications or dietary stuctures that help to reduce some of the unwanted results of living as an autistic person in an ableist world. Anxiety and depression being among the most common. Cannibinoids |USAToday://Marijuana may be a miracle treatment for children with autism> "There is anecdotal evidence that marijuana’s main non-psychoactive compound — cannabidiol or CBD — helps children in ways no other medication has. Now this first-of-its-kind scientific study is trying to determine if the link is real." "Adi Aran, the pediatric neurologist leading the study, said nearly all the participants previously took antipsychotics and nearly half responded negatively. Yael desperately pushed Aran and other doctors to prescribe cannabis oil after a news report aired about a mother who illegally obtained it for her autistic son and said it was the only thing that helped him. “Many parents were asking for cannabis for their kids,” Aran said. “First I said, 'No, there’s no data to support cannabis for autism, so we can’t give it to you.'” He said that changed about a year ago after studies in Israel showed that cannabis helped children with epilepsy by drastically reducing seizures and improving behavior for those who also have autism. Epilepsy afflicts about 30% of autistic children, Aran said." "Tamir Gedo, CEO of Breath of Life Pharma, which provides the cannabis oil for the study, said one mother reported, "My child is speaking relentlessly. … He never spoke before. And he's 12 years old.” One major concern is the long-term impact of prescribing cannabis to young patients, said Sarah Spence, co-director of the Autism Spectrum Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. “There certainly could be harm” to brain development, she said. But opioids and antipsychotic drugs currently prescribed to children are more harmful, said Gedo. “These families have no other hope.”" |Neuron:/Rothwell2014/Autism-Associated Neuroligin-3 Mutations Commonly Impair Striatal Circuits to Boost Repetitive Behaviors> "In humans, neuroligin-3 mutations are associated with autism, whereas in mice, the corresponding mutations produce robust synaptic and behavioral changes. However, different neuroligin-3 mutations cause largely distinct phenotypes in mice, and no causal relationship links a specific synaptic dysfunction to a behavioral change." |Neuron:/Foldy2013/Autism-associated neuroligin-3 mutations commonly disrupt tonic endocannabinoid signaling.> "Here, we used paired recordings in mice carrying these mutations to measure synaptic transmission at GABAergic synapses formed by hippocampal parvalbumin- and cholecystokinin-expressing basket cells onto pyramidal neurons. We demonstrate that in addition to unique gain-of-function effects produced by the neuroligin-3 R451C-knockin but not the neuroligin-3 knockout mutation, both mutations dramatically impaired tonic but not phasic endocannabinoid signaling. Our data thus suggest that neuroligin-3 is specifically required for tonic endocannabinoid signaling, raising the possibility that alterations in endocannabinoid signaling may contribute to autism pathophysiology." Full Text "Although we show here that NL3 is selectively essential for tonic endocannabinoid signaling, this result does not exclude the possibility that NL3 performs other functions. In fact, analogous to other genes such as RIMs (Kaeser et al., 2012), NL3 could perform major functions that are redundantly also performed by other neuroligins. The previous analysis of constitutive neuroligin triple KO mice strongly supports this notion by revealing functional redundancy among neuroligins (Varoqueaux et al., 2006), as does the observation of multiple strong phenotypes produced by the R451C and R704C KI mutations in NL3 (Tabuchi et al., 2007; Etherton et al., 2011a and 2011b). The requirement for NL3 in tonic endocannabinoid signaling affirms the notion that neuroligins specify synapse properties, as NL3 confers onto CCK-containing synapses tonic endocannabinoid signaling without influencing phasic signaling or other synaptic parameters. Tonic endocannabinoid signaling was not previously associated with a specific regulatory mechanism but the link to NL3 revealed here validates the importance of this signaling pathway and suggests a possible endocannabinoid involvement in autism." Category:Autism Spectrum Category:Medicine